


Those Selfsame Lips (that held you in your dream)

by Cosmo_is_Beink_Melon



Series: I Don't Know How My Heart Deceives Me [1]
Category: Captain America (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Angst, First Kiss, Hydra (Marvel), Hydra!Stemo, Kissing, M/M, Memory Alteration, Secret Empire (Marvel), except not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-14 03:08:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14761455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cosmo_is_Beink_Melon/pseuds/Cosmo_is_Beink_Melon
Summary: “Helmut, you are my best friend—the closest thing I’ve ever had to a brother. That is the truth I would proudly give my life for. When no one else was there, you always were. And I need that now more than ever.”—Captain America: Steve Rogers #11-------A month ago, Captain Hydra offered Zemo everything: a shared history, purpose, friendship, and most importantly,answers. Now, plans necessitate that they leave each other’s side—if only temporarily.Zemo isn’t sure he can handle that.





	Those Selfsame Lips (that held you in your dream)

**Author's Note:**

> I fully admit that I am Hydra!Stemo trash, so when [dnitegirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dnitegirl/pseuds/dnitegirl) wanted Zemo to get a smooch before his next mission...I wasn't about to step down from the challenge.

This is his truth now.

It is inside of him, a living, breathing thing—a shouted answer to every question, every doubt, every longing he’s ever entertained.

_Steven Rogers._

Their histories entwine, though not in the horrid ways described by his traitorous memory—not in the death of his father, not as mortal enemies, but as friends.

Steven is his best, his dearest, friend.

His brother.

His…

It is the last time they will see each other for a while. Of course, Helmut knows he will still catch glimpses of Steven in all the usual places. On the television, in newspapers, on the covers of magazines. The way he’s almost always seen Captain America: from afar. They may feign enmity, even cross swords, until such a time as Steven is ready to reveal his true self to the world.

But this quiet moment together will be their last. Until, until…

Steven leans against the wall near the window. The early morning light pours over his shoulder, illuminating the gold in his blond locks. He watches Helmut with luminous blue eyes. Zemo has always been drawn to those eyes. Hard, beautiful. But there’s something new in them: knowledge.

It’s those eyes, as much as Steven’s stories, that speak to an aching place in Helmut’s soul. He knows it all for truth. Their shared history, their friendship, _loyalty_.

Zemo paces, his footfalls muffled by the thick carpet. He’s agitated, full of a thousand bees that swarm and buzz in his brain. He’s afraid now, afraid of losing what he never knew he had.

“Helmut,” Steven says. His voice is quiet, but his tone is authoritative. Stop, Helmut. Look, Helmut. Listen, Helmut.

He does.

“You’re worried,” Steven observes. He tilts his head slightly. “What troubles you, old friend?”

Zemo’s lips quirk. What indeed? Perhaps the thought of losing something which a month ago had no value to him.

“I should be…” The petulance in the words is a shock, and he chokes them off before they can escape.

Still, his heart proclaims it: _I should be at your side._

The half-formed words hang awkwardly in the air between them. Zemo sighs heavily. “This is for the best.”

“Oh?” Steven’s response is coy, teasing. Somehow he knows, somehow he sees right into Zemo. His fears, his frustrations. His wants, his desires. His cloying, insatiable needs.

Helmut drifts closer to Steven, and his hands are questing, curious. They alight on the back of a tufted chaise lounge, the smooth mahogany of his father’s writing desk, the hand-cut stained glass of the Tiffany lampshade. These trappings of wealth and history will remain even after Steven has returned to America. They will retain their shape, their color, their value.

He would trade them all, and the memories they contain. He would trade them for more time.

_Boldness, Helmut Zemo._ His hand falls away from the bars of a golden birdcage, the clockwork gears of the automata inside, still and quiet.

Steven has not moved at all. He watches silently. The Hydra-green fabric of his suit favors his complexion, and the cut accentuates his god-like physique. His presence is appropriately humbling.

Helmut walks to the far end of the large picture window. He lays one gloved palm flat against the glass, as if the thin pane will ground him, provide balance and stability. He wants a thousand things in this moment. He needs to monologue, to pontificate, to underscore his multitude of feelings with dramatic swells, with shouts, and whispers, and clever turns of phrase.

If only they could share an embrace. Something real, something tactile, for him to cling to, even as they commit themselves fully to their disparate responsibilities. As Zemo hunts down that errant Cosmic Cube which has assumed the form of a little girl, and as Steven digs deeper inside the heart of the traitorous government that stole Hydra’s victory, that rewrote their past.

When Steven steps to his side, he glances over at the man. The gauzy covering over his mask’s eye-holes softens only the finest details of Steven’s face, and yet Helmut suddenly finds himself wishing for his old mask. When he made the switch, he’d believed his eyes betrayed too much, gave his enemies too great an advantage. But now he bitterly craves every detail.

They are his by right.

He raises his hands to his face, ready to pull off the mask.

“Let me,” Steven says, turning him so that they face one another. Without fanfare, he drags his hands along Helmut's shoulders, then works his thumbs into the seam where Zemo’s mask is tucked beneath the tight fabric of his body suit. He slowly lifts the edge of the mask, careful as if he were pulling up a taped edge of wrapping paper on a precious gift. Helmut shivers when one of Steven’s neatly-trimmed nails grazes his neck.

It is a shock that Steven has found a patch of skin that still has sensation. His face is mostly dulled under the weight of his scars. It is rare, outside of taking a punch, that he should feel anything, and unfamiliar, as those blows typically cause his nerve-endings to flare and spark like downed power lines.

Helmut has never been troubled by his brutal visage. After all, how many times has he said that a scarred Zemo is a vengeful Zemo? His appearance is a tool, a weapon to frighten his enemies. For the first time that he can remember, however, he feels something akin to shame. Unlike so many others in his life, Steven has known him when his face was smooth, handsome.

He’s imagined the edges and outlines of their childhood friendship so often that he can almost feel their shape under his fingertips. Steven’s stories paint a wonderful picture of kinship. But it’s Helmut’s mind that has filled in all the most vivid details.

Steven would have watched him from afar, envious of Helmut’s size, his bulk, his handsome face. He would have sat on the rug in Helmut’s room, appraising him, appreciating his features. And when he looked away, Helmut would have watched him in turn. He’s seen photos of Steven from his youth. Such fine bones, such long lashes. Helmut’s attention would have been so much darker, filled with lust.

The corded mask lifts past his lips, comes to settle on the bridge of his nose. He dares not move.

Steven stands entirely too close for a friend. They breathe each other’s air, feel each other’s body heat. Helmut holds himself taut until Steven’s knuckles run along his jaw.

“I can feel that,” he murmurs, because he can. It’s not painful at all.

“I’d certainly hope so,” Steven replies, his voice warm and low. “And what about this?” he asks, his other hand coming to rest against Helmut’s cheek. Zemo closes his eyes.

“Yes.”

“Your scars are more proof that they may have changed our history, but they could never fully erase our loyalty to one another.” He strokes along the scars, his fingers reading them like braille. “Why would you have saved the False Captain, your nemesis, if not for a brother’s love?”

“Steven, I need no further convincing. I was, and will ever be, yours.”

“Of course you are,” Steven says, ghosting his thumb over Helmut’s bottom lip. “You could belong to no one else.” The possession in Steven’s voice thrills him.

A kiss waits patiently in the space between the pair. Helmut presses in first, to claim what is rightfully his. He slides one strong, gloved hand to the nape of Steven’s neck, and pulls the man close.

The first brush of their lips is gentle, unhurried. It betrays none of the desperation Zemo feels, none of his need. He intends to take his time, to lead Steven in a slow choreography of intimacy. But then Steven’s hand slips around his waist, fingers digging into the tense muscles of Zemo’s back. Together, they crowd out the space between them, pressing flush so that the planes of their bodies align. Zemo braces himself, holding precariously to his control of the situation.

He is compelled to deepen the kiss sooner than he would have liked, but having begun, he finds he cannot stop. He works his tongue into Steven’s mouth, drawn by Steven’s magnetism. It is a gravitic pull that forces Helmut’s measured responses to accelerate to fevered need.

The illusion of command lasts only a minute longer, before they slip together into passionate disorder. Steven snatches at Helmut’s bottom lip, sucking it into his mouth. Helmut’s fingers seem to twist into Steven’s short hair of their own volition, mussing the style.

The sounds they produce are noisy and wet. Unabashed experimentation. They press closer still. They are ill-practiced and reckless, clawing like starved teenagers.

“If you are curious.” Helmut halts to gulp air into burning lungs. “I can most definitely feel _this_.”

“Nnm,” Steven murmurs in agreement.

They are not the sort of men who are prone to excess, and yet, surely they must be intoxicated. Drunk on lust and shared pleasure.

Zemo drops kisses along Steven’s jaw, enjoying the tickling roughness of stubble against his lips. He worries Steven’s earlobe with his teeth, delighting in the man’s writhing reactions. His tactician’s brain plots out a dozen explorations: sorties, attacks, and feints. He could spend the whole day learning to kiss this man. He smiles against Steven’s flushed neck.

“I like when you smile,” Steven says, seizing the moment to retaliate with his own assault on Helmut’s neck. He sucks up welts on the skin above Helmut’s pulsing carotid. Zemo hisses in pleasure. Those marks will be theirs alone, hidden from view beneath the heavy fabric of his mask.

Far-off church bells toll the wretched hour.

“Damn you, Rogers,” Zemo whispers between frantic, desperate kisses. “Damn you. _Damn you._ ”

“What have I done to earn such curses from you?” Steven’s smirk is wicked.

“There is so much more to do together,” he murmurs as their lips meet. “I want this to last for hours. Days. Weeks. Months. I want—”

— _to be with you in my bed_.

“Instead…”

“Instead,” Helmut agrees.

This must end. They have duties, responsibilities, the consequences of rank and privilege. Regretfully, Helmut draws Steven in for one last fervent kiss, willing himself to stop, but failing.

“You taste just like I remember, Helmut.”

As those words land, Zemo finally stills, blinks, pulls back enough to break the kiss. “You’re saying this isn’t new for us?”

“Hardly,” Steven replies with bemused confidence. He tilts his head slightly, studies Helmut’s mouth, traces the contours with his eyes. “We were inseparable from almost the first moment we met. It didn’t take long at all for us to realize... to become...more.”

“Why would you hide this from me?” Zemo’s voice coils low in accusation.

Steven raises his eyes, wets his lips, makes no effort to conceal his hunger. “What if I’d confessed this to you and you’d been revolted? What if you did not trust or share my feelings? It wasn’t just a matter of pride, Helmut. I need you, and did not dare risk such a blow to our alliance or our cause.”

Steven leans close, whispers a kiss at the corner of Helmut’s mouth. It’s far too chaste, especially after their hurried, sloppy ardor. The frenzy of tongues and teeth. He wants to rasp himself against the hard lines of Steven’s body. Instead he bites down on his gloved hand and fights to ignore the swollen testament to his lust that strains against his pants.

“Given this evidence of your interest—” Steven’s understatement prompts a huff of laughter from Helmut. “I’m happy to tell you anything you’d like to know. You were insatiable in those days. Sneaking into my room at all hours of the night, meeting in out-of-the-way spots when we should have been studying. There weren’t nearly enough hours in the day for all our secret liaisons.”

“By the water’s edge…”

“You remember?”

He doesn’t. But he remembers the lake at the edge of the school grounds, remembers loving the way sunset colors refracted off lazy ripples created by the breeze. It is easy to imagine Steven at his side, easy to imagine they would have enjoyed that sight together. But when he closes his eyes, he is alone on the bank.

So much was stolen from him.

Words spill from Zemo’s lips. A wrathful tirade of sworn retribution.

“ _Sie werden_ zehnfach _für das bezahlen, was sie getan haben! Sie werden den Tag_ bereuen _, an dem es ihnen in den Sinn kam, den Cosmic Cube gegen_ Helmut Zemo _zu erheben!”_ (1) Rage burns, consuming the edges of his words, curling them to ash. “ _Das schwöre ich auf meine Ehre. Das schwöre ich auf das Hause Zemo.”_ (2)

“ _Ja, Helmut. Das ist gut._ ”

Zemo blinks in shock at Steven’s quiet response. “You...understand my native tongue.”

Steven smiles and says, “This is what you still don’t seem to grasp, Helmut. You are my heart. It is my joy to learn, to know, _everything_ about you.” His words are salve and succor to Zemo’s aching soul. “We will make the fools pay,” Steven continues, catching Helmut’s chin between thumb and forefinger. “They will suffer for the victories they stole from Hydra. And more still for what they stole from _us_.” His tongue curls bitterly around the vowels as he swears, “I will set this false world ablaze for you.”

They embrace—Steven’s arms locking around Helmut’s chest, his own around Steven’s shoulders. Zemo’d believed he needed this contact to fortify himself for the coming war. But no longer. Their loyalty to one another, and to their cause, will see them victorious. And when they are reunited, they will bring one another trophies and glories like bouquets of wildflowers.

“Hail Hydra,” Steven says as he rights Zemo’s mask, tucking the edges back into the bodysuit. His hands fall away. He straightens.

“Hail Hydra,” Zemo replies.

~ Fin.

**Author's Note:**

> (1) “They will pay tenfold for what they’ve done. They will regret the day they ever thought to raise the Cosmic Cube against Helmut Zemo.”  
> (2) “I swear this on my honor. I swear this on House Zemo.”
> 
> **Before you do anything, check out this absolutely[AMAZING FANART](http://gravesinc.tumblr.com/post/175517551900/a-little-something-for-cosmo-is-beink-melon) by gravesinc!** <3 I died and went to heaven and heaven was this picture!
> 
> If you’re curious, Zemo’s scarred face is from his second accident (when he saved Steve Rogers) and not his Adhesive-X face, which is the much more gruesome of the two. Either way, he’s deserving of love. :3
> 
> A special thanks to my German beauties [Staubengel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Staubengel/pseuds/Staubengel) and [Bluethenstaub](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluethenstaub/pseuds/Bluethenstaub) for translating the purple bastard.
> 
> The title is from Daniel Bedingfield's incredible song _Way With Words_ which I'm pretty sure he must have written about Hydra!Stemo. ;)
> 
> **Please, please, please consider leaving comments and kudos! I'm sailing on the itty bitty Hydra!Stemo ship and your feedback gives me life and purpose.**
> 
> You can find me on [Tumblr!](https://cosmo-is-beink-melon.tumblr.com)


End file.
